


Twin Ravens

by Ffwydriad



Series: Just The Same But, You Know, Completely Different [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Character Study, Drabble, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Maximoff Twin Feels, Maximoff family feels, Maximoff-centric, Some dark themes i guess, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:16:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6502135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ffwydriad/pseuds/Ffwydriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda Maximoff is born in a small rundown hospital in a small run down city in northern Sokovia.</p><p>Pietro Maximoff  is born eight minutes later in the same exact hospital in the same exact city, from the same exact person too. </p><p>This, in pieces, is their story</p><p>/Standalone but part of the JtSbD AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twin Ravens

This is Wanda. She is born in a small rundown hospital in a small run down city in northern Sokovia. The day is soft and cool enough for summer, and she enters the world with only a fair amount of screaming, not as loud as some babies. Not quiet, per se, but polite, almost, as if babies could be such a thing.

 

This is Pietro. He is born eight minutes later in the same exact hospital in the same exact city, from the same exact person too. He cries out a hellstorm, calming only when they place him beside his sister. The doctor laughs at this, says something about twins and fate, and hands the babies over to their mother.

 

Their mother leaves with them soon enough. The twins are entered in to records as Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, from the name that Magda hands over for the records. No one ever figures out exactly who or what she is running for, enough to give her children a name she stole from a traveler.

 

All parents keep secrets, after all.

 

* * *

 

Wanda is seven years old, a diligent daughter, who heads to school on time every day and focuses on learning all that she can. After school she sits by their neighbor's shop and helps to sell the bread, bringing home a loaf as payment to her mother.

 

Pietro is seven years old, and he attends school to sit next to his sister and have some time off, and runs messages throughout the city for a meager profit, bringing the money back in to the hands of his mother. He spends his days with his friends and his nights with his mother and sister, reading and praying and telling stories in the dark.

 

The apartment they share is small and cramped with only one room and only one bed, but it is theirs. What more could they ever want?

 

* * *

 

Wanda is nine and she has been a good person, kind and just, yet on a holy day, of all days, the bomb crashes through the ceiling and she lies on the floor under the bed, waiting to be killed by the American billionaire she and her friends all wanted to be. If the tears were able to come, she would cry.

 

Pietro is nine and he is fast enough to see the bomb falling, fast enough to drag his sister in to safety, but not his mother. He sits on the floor, waiting to die, thinking first 'I could have, should have saved her' and second 'if I live, I will destroy the man called Stark'.

 

When they finally clear the shell away all that is left is a picture from a camera that barely managed to survive, a few measly coins, and some dirty, dusty clothes. Their mother is dead, and the children who come out of the rubble have changed.

 

* * *

 

Wanda is twelve and a half and she stands on the streets watching as the television talk about Iron Man, about Tony Stark. The people on screen seem to be cheering, talking about how he has discovered his weapons sold to terrorists, has become a superhero to save the world. She stares at that and wonder if it’s true, wonders if he could have possibly changed. But then she gets flashbacks to his name on the side of the bomb and thinks that no longer.

 

Pietro doesn’t even bother to watch the televisions or listen to the talk. He hears the bitter laughter. The bombings here were from no terrorists, yet still they happened and still people died. He hates this, hates Stark, even if it’s only because he is the face of the people who will drop bombs and kill mothers and never, ever pay.

 

They don’t speak about it, they never speak about it, they just hold each other’s hands tightly and try to get by.

 

* * *

 

 

Wanda is fourteen and she sits on the streets of the capitol city, the part that's nicer than the rest where the few people who do have money tend to be. She wears a red dress and a mysterious face, and sits on a rug burning incense telling fortunes for money. Maximoffs are not beggars, yet, and her fortunes attract both the arrogant tourists, few in number, and those who believe in what she peddles. It is a living, if not a good one.

 

Pietro is fourteen and he is fast enough to run. The city is a maze and he is the fastest to navigate it, and pay is decent for no questions asked messages and deliveries. You can not trust just anyone in the city, after all, and dangerous men pay better than any other job he could have taken. He will not see his sister a beggar, or worse, and there are worse jobs to take, in the city. He runs.

 

Together they live in a ruined house that has enough walls to keep the winds away. They aren't alone; there are many orphaned children in Sokovia. They are hidden in the dirty, ruined sides of the city, and most all of them bring in money for Wanda to pay for meals. She is the most respectable looking of all of them, like a priestess. Like a witch.

 

It isn't home, and it isn't family, but it certainly takes that shape.

 

* * *

 

 

Wanda is eighteen and there are too many missing off of the streets. People go missing all the time, but this is noticeable, even if only to a fortune teller like her. She sees the men with they're trucks, and maybe they offer deals for a better life, and that drags some away. Wanda is smarter. She doesn't trust them. She doesn’t trust anyone much right then.

 

Pietro is eighteen and he has seen the men in dark take people off the street. Most seem to go willingly, others not so much. He plans to take a stand, to keep guard over the children and his sister. But he needs the money, and he can't watch them all of the time. He hasn’t prayed in a long time, but he prays that none of them disappear.

 

The men find the house in the rubble as the sun starts to set, and knives don't work well against guns and armor. The vans are inconspicuous. No one notices how many are missing, not quite. Why would they? There are many beggar children in the back streets of Sokovia. Who would even care?

 

* * *

 

 

Wanda screams.

 

Pietro screams.

 

The laboratories are filled with the stench of low grade anesthetics - no need wasting the good stuff if most of the subjects are going to die anyway. The process is a thousand injections, or maybe just one, and most die on the table. Some die days later, in constant pain, their bodies failing. One boy lives for a few weeks before he explodes in to little bits of guts and skin.

 

The only two to make it any longer are the two of them, locked up inside of little cells, as Hydra tries it's best to make more, to turn them to the cause. The room is dark and everything echoes, and they both are underneath that bed again, waiting to die.

 

* * *

 

 

Wanda is strange. She can feel something in her heart, and the world reacts at her fingertips. It starts small, with the blasts, and then she has the telekinesis. She waits for her brother to die, either from the experiment or just by tiring himself out with the constant motion. She waits for herself to die, too, but she waits more for when someone finally gets close enough and she can figure out what these powers can do to her captors.

 

Pietro is fast. He's so fast that it takes him a long time to realize that it's not that everything has slowed down. He can't sit still so he runs up the walls of the tiny cell block, waiting for his sister to die. Waiting for himself to die.

 

Neither of them do.

 

* * *

 

 

Wanda breaks free with a trick of her powers and brings her captors to their nightmares, and then Tony Stark falls in to their clutches, and she could never just settle with killing him. She has to show the world that he is wrong, how bad a man he is.

 

Pietro runs free for the first time, taking out the guards and the Avengers alike. Freedom is like a drug on his mind, and he can do anything, and no one is like him. He smiles at his sister and grabs her hand, pulling her along with a childish grin he hasn’t had in so long.

 

Then there is Ultron, and hope for something better, only to end with bloody mistakes. All of their power and freedom turn back in to fear. Then there is doubt, and betrayal, and redemption – redemption at the group who intrinsically represent everything wrong with the world. The man who represents everything wrong.

 

Then there is Sokovia, and Ultron, and then Pietro dies and Wanda will not let that happen. She can not let that happen, and maybe, just maybe, she tries to fix that with her power, tries wishing on that far off star, prays and prays and prays that everything will go right. Her mother had spent most of her life praying, and neither of them had put much faith in it, after. But maybe her prayers will hold some meaning.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Wanda cries.

 

Pietro breathes.

 

The battle is won with bated breath and bruised fists. The Avengers win and they offer the pair of them a wary eyed place by their side. There is anger and fear but also trust and hope. A chance to do something good in the world. To be that good and to stand up.

 

 

* * *

 

The Scarlet Witch is born of blood and fire and pain, but above all sadness. The powers of the universe runs through her blood and through her mind. She is loved, and she is feared, because such an ultimate power must always bear an ultimate price. Wanda knows that day will come, but in the meantime she will do all she can to help the world."

 

Quicksilver is born of hate and pain and death, but above all love. He comes back from the edge of Hel itself. He will stand by his sister until the end of time, and he will stand by the Avengers for as long as he can. For however long that is, he will do what he can to help the world, and to change it.

 

The two bear new names, new clothes, new alliances. But hey bear the same smiles, the same hopes, and the same dreams. Life has changed them for the good, but as always, all they want is to help people.

 

Maybe that will be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> aaa my precious children must protect~
> 
> this was fun to write. like so much fun, and the others are also great. don't worry, they aren't all rambly backstory. only some of them. 
> 
> also, i'll be posting these as individual works, but would you guys prefer it if i made them in to one or no? i kind of like them as seperate, but i would like some other opinions on that whole deal~
> 
> anyways next one up is "protege" - any bets on who the focus of that one will be?


End file.
